"Nothing can be explained. The world only knows how to do one thing, to roll over and kill you, as a sleeper kills his fleas. That would be a stupid way to die, I said to myself, to let myself be crushed like everybody else. To put your trust in men is to get yourself killed a little." -- Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Journey to the End of the Night (trans. R. Manheim).

"What does it mean to be alive except to court disaster and suffering at every moment?"

Tibet: Carnivals? Ligotti: Ceremonies for initiating children into the cult of the sinister.Tibet: Gas stations?Ligotti: Nothing to say about gas stations as such, although I've always responded to the smell of gasoline as if it were a kind of perfume.

Here is a lovely, lonely, forlorn, doleful, dismal, melancholy poem by American poet James Wright titled, "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota." Don't be deceived by the dazzling beauty; it carries a nasty sting in its tail!

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.

No one decides to become who they become. You do not know who you are until you are someone, and then you are someone for a while, and then you are someone else. Always someone else. Or you are no one.

(...)

Currently there is a lot of talk about becoming so-called whole persons, whatever that is. We have no chance of doing so. We will keep limping our way through life, because there is always something we lack. In every situation, at any time. Whoever we are. No need, no desire is ever definitely satisfied.

From an interview with Tor Ulven, loosely translated: No need, no desire is ever definitely satisfied.

Indeed. Like this thread's title 'pessimistic passage of the day' when I sit on the lavatory in the morning and hope.

Ah yes, the horrors of physical existence. It is never the end of (the) matter: there will always be yet another day and yet another toilet, and when the defecation to end all defecations comes at last, you will be sorry to go.